You And Me
by AWildLittleVixenWhoWrites
Summary: au eclipse, embry x oc- Embry was just about to give up on imprinting, accept the fate he thought he had coming as last wolf standing, and then fate intervened. He imprinted on Chloe Archer, a girl he met at a Halloween party. From beginning to happy end, this is their story.
1. Little Red Riding Hood

ONE

"I just don't get why we're here. We don't do the whole party thing. If we get pissed we might phase into our wolf forms, hello? If that happens, guess we all have our costumes, huh?" Embry mumbled dryly as Paul nudged him and gave him a silencing glare before muttering something and shoving his way through the crowd, away from the rest of them.

Embry knew why Paul was at the house party, of course, because apparently, his own imprint was in a cover band and that cover band happened to be playing this house party tonight. He knew why Jacob was here, because Anna knew one of the girls in the band from school and the girl was her best friend so Anna had come to show her support and hang out with friends.

Quil, Jared, Seth and Leah were there because Sam had the no contact with the imprint rule, but he tended to be more lenient if imprinter bought at least one member of the pack with them to sort of diffuse any potential dangerous situation that the shifter's wolf status could cause for the imprintee.

Not that it made a whole lot of sense to Embry, of course, but out of all of them, he felt like he had the least amount of reason to actually be present at some cliché Halloween costume party. He leaned against a post, sipping on a soda he'd grabbed from a cooler marked non alcoholic and his almost obsidian colored eyes flitted around the party, while his mind just sort of wandered.

Lately, he was getting extremely discouraged. It seemed like the pack was imprinting more often lately. Outside of Leah and Seth, he was still unimprinted. The young male was starting to wonder if there were something wrong with him.

Or if he'd ever be as happy as the rest of his friends.

He was dangerously close to giving up, actually, and with each day that passed, he got a little more discouraged and a little more bitter.

"C'mon, Embry, let's walk outside." Leah coaxed, looking at her packmate in concern. She'd actually stopped caring if she ever imprinted because the imprint bond was the very reason that she'd gotten her heart broken to begin with. But she knew Embry wanted nothing more than to imprint and being out with the pack and their imprints as a group sort of made him feel like a third wheel.

He was a nice guy, even if they had their differences.

"I'm gonna hang out in here a little bit." Embry mumbled, finishing his soda, crushing the can in his hand and tossing it at a garbage pail.

Leah nodded distractedly. He'd seen the look in her eyes before and his gaze followed hers. Whoever she'd imprinted on just now apparently knew Anna from school, because the guy had Anna and Jacob stopped, Jacob and the guy were in a deep conversation or something.

"And then there were two." Embry muttered dryly as he walked over to a relatively empty corner, flopped down onto a sofa.

He'd been debating on leaving when it happened... The French doors that lead out onto a deck slid open and the sweet and fragrant scent of cherries filled his nose and enticed him. A group of girls walked in and walked past, heading towards the area where people were crammed in practically one on top of the other, dancing.

"That was totally useless." he muttered, brow raised. Maybe one of the girls was wearing cherry scented perfume or something? Apparently, he mused to himself, he was now officially so desperate to imprint, to have what nearly everyone else in his pack had, that he was going to start imagining himself imprinting..

He'd settled back into the seat on which he sat when the French doors slid open again and the scent got a thousand times stronger and even more enticing as a girl with long legs and long dark hair, wearing a vibrant red cape and a black mini dress walked past.

Everything in the party disappeared into the background and all the disappointment and bitterness, all the pain Embry felt at being odd wolf out for so long seemingly melted away in a matter of seconds. All there was left was her.

He watched her as she stood next to a table filled with cookies, chipd and dips and a large chocolate cake. Her hand shot out, a red tipped finger trailed slowly across the chocolate frosted cake when she thought no one was looking and she licked the icing off her fingertip and he couldn't help but smile a little as this vivid and hyper realistic montage of random images of her ran through his mind. He could see her sitting on the back of his dirtbike, he could see the two of them on First Beach, swimming, he could see them slow dancing at both Forks High prom and La Push High prom, he could see her walking towards him in white, he could see himself lifting up a giggling little dark haired girl with two pigtails as she looked on laughing at him.

He could see everything from this moment on and it was amazing.

He was bought out of his daze when Quil and Seth nudged him on either side, Quil asking him with a raised brow, "Are you alright, Embry?"

"Yeah.. I think I am." Embry said as he managed a smile, continued to stare at the dark haired girl in the Red Riding Hood costume.

Seth and Quil's gaze followed Embry's gaze and Seth nearly doubled over as Quil mused aloud, "You imprinted on Little Red Riding Hood? Do you not see the irony and humor in this?" while laughing a little himself.

"Well? Are you going to talk to her?" Seth asked as he eyed Embry, gave him a small push in the direction of the table she still stood at, sipping spiked punch from a red plastic cup, surveying the party as if she too were bored or out of place there.

Of course, you know how those little shoves from a shapeshifter are, and as a result, Embry wound up bumping into his imprint's back clumsily, still stunned that it had finally happened, he wasn't going to be the odd wolf out anymore.

–

Chloe gritted her teeth as the icy cold punch sloshed over the rim of her red plastic cup and onto her Halloween costume. She frowned a little, turned to face the person who'd probably drunkenly stumbled into her back and came face to face with a guy she could only describe as sex. Her eyes traveled over him slowly, she bit her lower lip and for a few rare moments in her life, she was speechless.

Then again, it's not everyday a girl gets smacked into by sex on two legs, she thought to herself as she willed her mouth to move, willed something to come out. Finally, she managed to say "Hi."

The guy grinned, it was a shyer one, Chloe noticed, and finally, after an intense stare down between the two of them, he managed to mumble "Hi."

"Hell of a party, right?"

"I don't really go to parties much. This one's actually been pretty good." Embry admitted quietly, eying her costume as he asked, "Little Red Riding Hood.. Right?"

"Mhmm." Chloe nodded as she sipped the remainder of her drink. She held it out to him for whatever reason, he shook his head and muttered something about how he wasn't really much of a drinker.

"So.. You smashed into me.. The least you can do, mystery man, is dance with me?" Chloe blurted, surprising herself when she did so.

"I'm really not.." Embry started to protest, only to find himself being practically dragged towards the dance floor as the band took a break and some slower dancing songs came on. He found himself thankful for that because the way he figured, any idiot could stumble their way through a slow dance. He found himself worried he'd step on her feet. "My name.. It's Embry."

"You don't really relax much, do you, Embry?" Chloe asked as she looked up at the guy, her teeth grazing her lips a moment. He seemed tense all over currently, she wondered if maybe she weren't flirting with a guy who was dating someone already or something. She added a few moments later, "My name's Chloe. So.. Who'd you come with?" looking up at Embry with curiousity. Yes, it was her discreet way of asking him if he had a date or something without asking.

The odd thing was, she wasn't expecting the sheer joy that washed over her when he pointed out a group of people that were mostly guys, some obviously there with their own dates. "Cool." Chloe said as she added, "I came alone. I kind of snuck out tonight." with a smallish giggle.

Embry chuckled and then asked, "Do you go to Forks High?"

"Yeah. Do you?"

"No, I go to La Push High." Embry said as he stared at her intently a few moments as she continued to speak, explaining that her grandparents did live on the Quileute reservation, however, as did her cousin Alicia.

From behind him, throats cleared. He turned around, gave Paul a glare as Paul said quietly, "We've all gotta bail man. Now."

Chloe pouted for a few moments, then said with a wink, "I'll see you around, Embry. But in the meantime.." as she grabbed his larger hand in hers, found a red lipstick in her cape's sewn in pocket and scrawled her cell phone number and her home phone number onto his hand. She smiled and looked at him then said quietly, " So.. Looks like it's your move now, mystery man." and after a few more moments of the two staring at one another, she made her way through the crowd, towards the front of the party where the band was setting back up for the second half of the set, cheering loudly.

Paul laughed and Embry glared a moment at the rest of his pack as if to ask 'what the hell?' and then Paul asked casually, "So.. How did it feel?"

"It felt amazing." Embry muttered as he smiled quietly and looked down at his hand, at the phone numbers written onto his palm in bright red.


	2. Anticipation

**{Authors Note: I had a review! I'm so happy right now, you have no idea, even. I loved that so much! }**

* * *

**TWO**

* * *

"Man, just call her already, you really sound worse than I did with the inner monologue." Jacob pointed out to Embry as they stood in the Black's garage attempting to work on Embry's dirtbike because they planned to go trail riding on dirtbikes over the weekend.

Embry flipped him off and raked his hand through his hair as he said with a shrug, "What do I say if I do, I mean it's been about a week. Any usable excuse I could make is played. And I can't just tell her that I was internally freaking out about calling her or something."

"Just call her, Embry."

"He's right. Do it before one of us dials the number, drops the phone into your hands and takes off running." Quil ordered as he looked at his friend, tried not to laugh a little at how Embry was so worked up about just calling his imprint.

But in Embry's defense, they all knew he was the shyest of them. It was harder for him to take the lead, to let that inner dominance out.

"Okay, alright. I'll call her.. Just as soon as I'm done with this damned dirtbike."

"No, Embry, damn it, you'll call her now."

"Seriously, man."

"We're all agreeing on this, Embry. If you don't call her, we're going to find out which house is her house and we're going to personally drive you there and ditch you at the doorstep after ringing the bell or knocking and hauling ass."

"Gee, thanks."

"Anytime, Call."

"That was sarcasm, Lahote."

"I know this, Call."

Seth shoved a phone at Embry and pointed to the door of the shed slash garage, a stern look in his eyes. A few seconds later Embry found himself shoved out into the yard and the door shut, being held closed most likely by his pack brothers.

He dialed the phone number and waited..

* * *

Chloe looked at the cell phone, brow raised as she walked out of the diner in Forks where she'd been getting food for her stepfather who was apparently feeding his entire EMT/Fire/Rescue unit that night. "I wonder who this is.. I hope it's that guy from the party. But knowing my luck it's yet another wrong number or hang up call." she muttered to herself as she answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey.. It's Embry.. From the party?"

"Ahh, so you did call, mystery man. I was starting to get sad." Chloe said with a light laugh as she unlocked her mom's Honda, got into it and fastened her seat belt so the dinging noise would stop. She fumbled around with the radio station a few moments and then asked Embry, "So.. How have you been?"

"I'm good.. Just working on my dirtbike right now."

Chloe tried her very best not to picture that, maybe he was shirtless, or no, in one of those tank tops, covered in oil and grime and.. She was licking her lips and it made her laugh a little at herself, shake her head as she looked at herself in the rearview mirror of her mom's car. "So you like dirtbikes, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Cool.. I'll have to see this dirtbike sometime." Chloe stated as she brushed out her hair, mostly doing things to keep her hands busy and her mind focused. Just hearing his voice, deep and husky.. It was a distraction of the highest kind.

"That'd be cool.. Maybe this weekend?" he asked her, making her cough a little. She smiled softly when she realized that the tone of his voice clearly indicated that he'd surprised himself by asking her that just then too.

"Actually, that works out amazingly. I've got to go to my aunt's, I have to babysit that night. But maybe we can ride a little during the day? I mean if you're not already busy, of course." Chloe said as she pumped the air with her fist in victory, smiled brightly.

"I'd love that."

"So would I."

"So.. What have you been up to?" he asked her, she bit her lower lip and then answered, "Sadly, not much. Hello, we're talking about Forks here. The only things there are to do are watching paint dry basically.. I did try out for a play we're going to do."

"Maybe I'll have to see that." he suggested, again, the tone of his voice hinted at total shock on his part that he'd suggested it. _'It's so cute how he's so shy. He has no reason to be shy, he's living breathing sex. But it's so cute and sweet how he doesn't seem to know that. I'll never get lucky enough to actually date him so I better enjoy this now.' _Chloe thought to herself as she again flipped through the radio stations, stopping on the song that was playing the night they danced at the party. "Recognize this song?"

He chuckled and his laugh made her stomach flutter a little. When he told her that yes, he did remember the song, she smiled even brighter. Maybe it had taken him longer to call her because he was so shy.

"Actually, Embry, just curious.. What are you doing later?" Chloe surprised herself by the urgency to just see him and be face to face with him again, the way she'd just asked him what she had just then. Normally she played close to the vest until she figured out whether what she wanted was a sure thing or not.

There was just something that drew her to him.

He chuckled again, coughed a little and then told her that all he planned to do was go to First Beach, some bonfire or something. "I'll be there.. I mean if that's okay?"

"I'd love that." he said as he heard his friends laughing, calling his name, turning to find Paul mooning him through the window in Jacob's fathers shed. He glared at Paul a few moments and then said casually, "Are you sure you want to come? I mean I warn you now, some of my friends can be idiots."

"Trust me.. Some of mine are too." Chloe admitted, laughing a little. After texting to ask her mother and her stepfather if it were alright if she went to La Push, stopping by to maybe visit her grandparents for the week before she left, she smiled and then said "And I'm incoming.. Just as soon as I drop off this food at the firehouse for my stepdad. Apparently, since he lost the poker game on Tuesday night at the station, he now has to feed everybody there."

Embry laughed and then said "When you get here, call me." as he raked his hands through his hair, then realized that he was covered in grime and grit and dirt and oil and if he were going to hang out with his imprint tonight he definitely needed a shower.

"Will do. See you in a little bit." Chloe said as they hung up and she immediately palmed her forehead.. She was currently wearing leggings, a pair of brown suede pull on boots and a slightly oversized red and navy blue plaid button up shirt.

"Ah well, he's seen me in worse, I mean that costume last week left little to the imagination." she reassured herself before setting off for the fire station.

Her heart, for once, was literally racing in anticipation to see him again. She hadn't ever actually felt that way before about a guy.

She just hoped this was a good thing and not the beginning of her getting hurt or something.


End file.
